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In Reply to: RE: another 1065 in lateral form posted by Swamis Cat on May 06, 2015 at 12:10:42
"I was recommending it specifically for the immense difficulty of getting
the sounds to integrate into a cohesive whole. As I mentioned, it is
extremely hard to keep the sounds of his body and bow from splashing all
over the room. It is recorded with three omni mikes as per this summary"
IMO, (and as I wrote), I feel it sounds like it splashes all over the room because it sounds somewhat 'out of phase'. If one's system is out of phase, (and as Shure test records commonly indicated), it will have a "diffuse and directionless quality". If the product is out of phase it wouldn't matter how many, or which types of microphones were used in making the original recording. I'm not saying that this recording is out of phase, but it is 'phasey' sounding, having that diffuse directionless quality. If a recording *is* out of phase, and you happen to be listening using a pre-amp which has a mono button, engaging it results in silence. That makes me wonder if doing that with this particular recording will reduce its output any.
Follow Ups:
They did the recordings in a very reverberant ballroom with the 3 mics too far off, the same set of sessions has his bach cello sonatas with the piano being more of a distinct image than less but Starker is swallowed in the reverberation. If you listen to just the finger noises on the neck then there is far less of a question of where Starker actually is.
There is a similar problem with Bell's recording of Prokofiev sonatas in a reverberant church. All space and no distinct location to the violin.
My sis loved playing the Bach suites in reverberant spaces like our orchestra's rehearsal room that used the players as the sole sound treatment. The effect is very similar to what you hear on the Starker - with all the reverberation going on you could not recognize where she was with your eyes closed.
I wish someone would tell the artists that it does not sound to others.like they think it does The home listener does not have the violin stuck at his ear to make up for the smearing of everything in reverberations, and does not hear the violin from inside his head as musicians tend to.
I don't think the recording is a failure in sound, I think the deliberate choice of venue is what you hear. The presence of so much hall sound is what Starker obviously wanted. It is also the kind of space the suites would have been performed in Bach's time.
The DG recordings of Menuhin doing Beethoven Sonatas brings the opposite problem as you can tell with precision where he is as he dances around the piano and comes nearer and then farther to the mic closest to him. The space is much drier and the mics are placed fairly close to the performers.
Satie,
Many thanks for your informative reply. Nonetheless I beg to differ with you in respect to one important regard. I tend to believe these works were performed in patron's drawing rooms much more often than in church venues and such recordings are all WET, when they should be dry!
It doesn't seem that these 'Cello Suites' were dedicated to anyone, nor written for the purpose of performance anywhere. How many different individuals had a hand in the surviving manuscripts seems to be unknown. They could merely been an intellectual enterprise, and now a suitable subject for several Ph.D. theses, (more likely than not, they have):
http://georgcello.com/bachcellosuites.htm
That said, there is recording available performed by one its scholars at Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/J-S-Bach-Cello-Suites-Georg-Mertens/dp/B009RXMIKG/ref=sr_1_1_twi_2_mus?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1431019920&sr=1-1&keywords=mertens+bach+cello+suites
Out of interest I will buy its CD release. The samples sound very nice as heard from my Tympanis. The snippets don't reveal any type of venue, almost sounding as an anechoic chamber, being *one* way I like it.
This entire matter could be in one's head. I have the recording of the Starker Bach Suites, etc. from one of the MLP boxes (Volume 1?), but would have preferred being able to read the booklet which came with the original CD release. I haven't been able to find it on the 'net. Oh well, needless to say there's many more recordings worthy of our time and consideration.
I have the CD booklet I can copy it for you if you want it
it includes the reference for the recording location (Ballroom studio A at the fine arts recording building) 1963
I like Starker's playing of the piece so I bear the defective sounding recording. I rarely care what the historically correct performance should be so long as the performance is emotionally convincing and hopefully well recorded. So I don't appreciate a romantic performer trying to do a stylistically PC baroque piece - I much prefer him to play it as it resonates with him. I look more for expression rather than interpretation.
One of my favorite shockers to play for people is Debussy playing some of his pieces transferred off an Edison roll. He plays in the heavy warm toned Brahms style on an obviously German piano. Not a sign of the light delicacy modern Debussy interpretations entail. He obviously thought himself a Romantic composer. Perhaps we should try out letting Tchaikovsky/Rachmaninoff specialists record Debussy.
Satie,
Thanks so very much for that information. Please don't go to the trouble of sending me a copy of the booklet.
"Ballroom studio A at the fine arts recording building) 1963" was the essential information I was hoping to see. Still Studio A in that Ballroom could have many differing qualities. Even somewhat like the Manhattan Center for Columbia, the Great Hall for the Vienna Philharmonic, and the Berlin Philharmonie for the BP. Different engineers make those halls sound quite differently, in many cases I wouldn't even expect that they were one and the same. e.g., take DG's Levine Mozart Symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic, all in Der Grosser Saal, some sound very differently than do others.
Unfortunately for me when recordings have undesirable qualities they can get in the way of my appreciation of a composition or interpretation. I just can't enjoy listening past it. Upon continued re-listening to the MLP Starker/Bach Suites, I find the recording isn't really so 'poor', even though I would have preferred it being somewhat different, i.e., more like that provided for Yo Yo Ma by Sony.
If you look at the halls of palaces of Bach's sponsors throughout his career then you see that the ballroom studio is not uncharacteristic. What is wrong is that there are no people in the room and thus the overwhelming reverberation.
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